Historical context of Modernist Literature.
Last decades of the 19th century to the beginning of the Second World War.
The First World War and Its Aftermath
• After the war, almost everyone would have had direct experience of loss and bereavement.
• Questioning the beliefs, class hierarchies and conventional moralities that made such a war possible.
• Rising importance of psychiatry as a “cure” for shell shock
• Shocked pessimism dominates